Emotions

I recently had a girl invite me to watch Sex and the City with her. She'd newly discovered the television show after never having really watched it before, and was suddenly addicted.

"Ugh," I said. "No thanks. But knock yourself out."

"Come on, please!" she protested. "It's so much fun!"

"Fun for women," I replied. "Men do not enjoy Sex and the City."

"That's not true!" she said. "It's a great show for men AND women!"

"It's a bunch of women who have no idea what they want doing the same things over and over again, never able to realize they're trapped in a perpetual loop of meaningless emotion–chasing," I responded. "There's little self–discovery, and loads of gossip, which is of course quite interesting to women, but like nails on a chalkboard to men."

She started watching an episode by herself, and soon called out to me, "You're right, I can see why women really like this and men don't!"

But I wanted to think about it some more. Why do women like that show so much, and why don't men? Certainly, there are exceptions – women who think it's trite, and men who think it's wonderful – but they're not the norm.

What I realized was that it's part gossip – women use gossip to stay informed on who's a desirable mate, who's an available mate, and who isn't – which is pretty useless to men but pretty vital to women – but it's also about time orientation... a little thing most people don't think much about, but that has huge implications for their dating lives and relationships.

We talk about value quite a bit on this site: being a high value man, dating a high value woman (or two) and adding value to situations where you want to make friends or contacts. But does value really matter that much? The short answer is: yes. It matters a lot.

Because while a lot of people feel entitled to things... just because you feel entitled doesn’t mean other people feel any obligation to give them to you.

I’ve noticed a certain level of self-entitlement in men that have no skills with women, men who are beginners, and even somewhat with men who are intermediate. Today I want to take a deeper look at value and examine what we as men “deserve” from women and life.

In yesterday's article on emotional contagion - Part I of this 2-parter on emotional transference - we discussed how the process of transferring emotions from person to person works. Namely, there are two steps:

1. Empower the other person around you first, then

2. Emote to the other person who, now empowered, will mirror you

Today's article is about the dark side of emotional contagion - something commonly called "psychic vampirism." That is, it's how some people have learned to use emotional contagion in reverse - rather than transfer energizing emotion to others, building them up and making them feel great, a psychic vampire has learned to use emotional transference to drain emotions the other way - feeding off the emotions of those he comes into contact with, making himself feel better at the expense of his conversation partner's emotional well-being.

Like the vampires of legend, a psychic vampire can "turn" you, too - with enough of your energy drained, you can become an energy drainer yourself, feeding off the positive emotions of others to sustain yourself.

But, just like emotional contagion, this is not some paranormal phenomenon - rather, it's simply down to empowering and emoting, seeing and mirroring.

A potent but under-discussed phenomenon in the fields of socializing and seduction is that of emotional contagion, the tendency for emotions between two or more people to converge.

Emotional contagion is the foundation of frame control, and is of vital importance too in creating sexual tension and social pressure, in remaining in command of yourself and others in high pressure situations, and in effectively leading women (and men, too).

You might say it's a case of "the person with the most solid and catchable emotions wins."

Todays article is the first of a two-part series on emotional transference, with two articles focused on:

1. How to transfer your emotions to others, and

2. How to protect yourself from others' negative emotional transfers

Done right, emotional transfer is an outstanding tool for creating the emotions in women that you want them to feel, and improving their experience, your experience, and the outcome of your interactions.

And while "emotional contagion" and "emotional transference" might sound at first like New Age-y touchy-feely mumbo jumbo, it is in fact hard science, and it all has to do with the fascinating little cells in your brain called "mirror neurons."

Something I've been asked from time to time on this site (most recently in a forum post by one of our members here) is why I don't date girls who club, party, drink, or have "girls' nights out".

The questions you most frequently get about this are:

• Doesn't every girl do these things?

• Who cares if she goes out and does a little drinking? I trust my girl to stay loyal.
  

• Aren't you a hypocrite if you do these things but expect her not to?

• Don't you trust your women to stay faithful to you? I thought you wrote in the article on how to prevent cheating that it was possible to be so great a partner than women wouldn't want to cheat?!

Most of these thoughts come from rather different places than where I come at relationships from, though. These thoughts revolve more around fear of loss, and/or a feeling of helplessness to control for or select against this behavior... neither of which I have.

This article will not be terribly helpful if you're still just starting out on your journey to get good with women, or are intermediate there, because you will not be able to follow it. Real screening is dependent on the ability to say "no," and until you reach the place where you truly have absolute abundance with women, there will always be women where your logic will say, "I'm not so sure about this one..," but your emotions will hit the override button and tell you, "Stop being silly - she's great."

So let's talk about why I recommend steering clear of these kinds of women if you want a stable, healthy relationship that is a boon to your existence, rather than the bane of it.

The other day a reader commented the following on the article about respect in a relationship:

“What I’ve realized is my problem has never been being a closer. Once in a position to close I close. I escalate. Period. It’s fun, it’s sexy, it’s adrenaline inducing! But until a woman starts showing signs of submitting to me or hinting that she likes me, I feel afraid. I feel like I might lose her if I do something stupid to make her upset. I feel like I can't communicate any of this fear to the woman because she will lose attraction for me. And so, it's a catch 22 because I know if I don't make a confident move, she won't do it first, and her attraction will eventually fade, yet if I make a move and she doesn't go for it (rejects me) I immediately will feel as if I like her more than she likes me. And I HATE with a PASSION for a woman to find out that I liked her more than she likes me. My logical mind says I shouldn't care and that I should just laugh it off and say "whatever", but my emotional mind doesn't agree yet.

...

Have you ever closed girls that showed no visual signs at all of liking to be in your presence? What was your mindset in dealing with them? How'd you handle these girls? Was there any difference (whether subtle or more substantial) than girls who showed more signs of wanting to be seduced? How'd you change their minds if they were on the fence by persisting? And did you notice after the fact that initially aloof girls were glad you persisted and showed your emotions first?”

When you want to be liked... that's a curious thing.

In some ways, wanting to be liked is good and necessary to life as a human being:

• It stops you from being a social retard
• It prevents you from creating lots of enemies
• It makes you a more appealing person people will do more to help

But, unchecked, a need to be liked can often be a very destructive thing.

Unchecked, it leads to hesitation, over-deliberation, and, very often, inaction.

It's not even about making your self-esteem dependent on other people or suffering from far too much anxiety. Those are what most advice dispensers hoist up as the reasons to not care too much about being liked... but they're mere child's play compared to the real reasons this mess you up.

Because if you spent too much time trying to be well-liked, you will miss out on the all best things life has to offer you.

A commenter on the article about sexy body language asks the following regarding narcissistic and egotistical women:

“I was wondering if you could put out any content on how to deal with narcissistic, overly selfish women. They're tougher to deal with on some levels and I'd love to see what kind of content you have for how to deal with that type of woman.”

If you're like many people reading this article, your first reaction might be, "Who on Earth wants to date a narcissist?"

You know... selfish, egotistical, conniving. Unempathetic. Cold, in many ways.

But there're two sides to everything, and narcissism is no exception. Narcissists also tend to be incredibly charming, very charismatic, and quite colorful. They're frequently the center of attention... the bright and shiny objects at the middle of the room.

They are the coveted. And they enjoy being coveted.

In fact, there are reasons you may want to date a girl who's a narcissist... just as there are reasons you may not.